Sharon,
Thank you for your great web site. I really enjoyed the masks. On your site you said that they were plaster and paper mache. Will the two materials join?
Carolyn at Tahoe
----- Original Message -----
From: sharon@art-rageous.net
To: ArtsEdNet Talk
Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 8:48 PM
Subject: RE: Plaster gauze on faces (Carolyn)

<<Second, years ago I used to do plaster cloth masks directly on the face of my students. Now that I am back teaching art at the high school level and while looking at art supply catalogs I noticed that plaster is no longer recommended for direct skin contact. Has health issues developed?>>

While I've never had a problem using vaseline and plaster gauze directly on a student's face, I've become more cautious. When I did this project at a summer camp this past summer, I used plastic wrap on the kids before applying the plaster gauze. While we lost a LITTLE bit of detail, it worked fine this way and I felt it was a safer alternative.

As you'll note in the pictures, some kids also did their hands and arms. I let them use vaseline and plaster gauze directly there, but I won't use it anymore on faces since the plastic wrap worked so well.